


Afterwards

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers, HBO War
Genre: Baberoe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His rough, calloused hands cupped Babe’s smooth cheeks: he realised for the first time how young he and the Philly boy were, and here he stood two years his senior, and it hit him how small they must have been when they went to war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterwards

It had barely been three days since Eugene’s father’s death and over a year since he and his siblings lost their mother. Now that his brothers and sisters had returned to their lives, he found the old house he once lived his days out in to be large and echoic, filled with memories and not all of them good, and surrounded by confusion. Since coming back from the war, he’d been in Baton Rouge, not back here in Bayou Chene with his family and as he stood where his teenage years had been housed, he wondered how he’d gone from preparing to marrying Vera to lying nights in the arms of an auburn-haired youth from Philadelphia - a male one.

He hadn’t spoken for a while, standing and staring around the room his parents had slept in, and so when he finally did, the subtly of the pain in his voice was amplified by a million.

Babe shook, fearing where the conversation would lead.

“See, I just -,” Gene paused and Babe waited silently, praying for no more hurt. “When I was a kid, my Dad was…” he held his hand up above his head and Babe understood. “…so important.” He continued. “I hoped that after the war I’d marry Vera and we’d have these kids and I’d be for them what my Pop was for me.” The emotion, the raw openness, was almost too much for Edward to take. “And then,”

“…and then I ruined that.” Babe supplied, reflexively, unable to calm the beating terror inside his chest.

“No.” Roe stepped forward, filling the space between them in the bedroom of Roe’s parents. “You change it, you change it up really obviously, but it ain’t ruined, Babe.” His rough, calloused hands cupped Babe’s smooth cheeks: he realised for the first time how young he and the Philly boy were, and here he stood two years his senior, and it hit him how small they must have been when they went to war. “I felt love for Vera - but I…” he stumbled over his words, never one for something emotional tumbling from his mouth when he wasn’t with his Grandmother - she inspired the truth in him and when she died, he became quiet. He grimaced, lost for words and Babe mimicked his stance by cupping Gene’s cheeks in his hands.

“You speak more French when you’re with them.” Babe changed the subject, knowing Gene well enough to know that when the pressure was eased with a subject change, he could often slip what he needed to say out with less hesitant wavering. “Your sister, the small one.”

“Louise,” Gene frowned in a smiling-kind-of-way.

“She’s like you. Grins a lot more but, she has eyes like you, you know?” Babe gave a smile and moved his hands from Gene’s cheeks to his hips.

Echoing the swap in stance, Gene smiled somewhat at the comparison: he’d always thought that Lou had particularly lovely eyes. “Before all this,” Gene said, “I never thought I could feel what my Grandmother told me about. Feel somebody else’s pain but want to feel it because it matters, wanting to touch them to feel it all. With Vera, I felt love but -,” his tongue lapped his rough, bitten lips. “With you, I want to feel it, feel it from you, touch you to get it.” He ran his hands over Babe’s pressed shirt, up and down his arms and back to the bones of his hips. “See?” he asked, hopeful and afraid.

Babe’s auburn brows rose, pale face torn between smiling and breaking as he sobbed. “Oui,”

The torture of trying melted from Gene’s face and he pulled Babe’s lithe body in close, arms wrapping around his waist. “Oh, oui? Vous parlez français aujourd’hui, hein?”

“Yeah…” Babe frowned with a smile, lost in translation, “Don’t push it.” Babe warned, burying his face in the crook of Gene’s neck and inhaling heavily. That smell, the smell of a boy he’d never know but a man he wanted to be with for the rest of his life, filled his nostrils as it did every time he embraced Gene this way. It never got old or weakened, it never got usual or habitual - it was just as it should be and always right and perfect and always, always Gene.


End file.
